


i will tell you how we can get out of here

by acerbicsarcasm



Series: learning, after the fact [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blatant use of the Peter Nureyev Alias Generator™, Canon-Typical Violence, Heist fic, Just a lot of Peter and Juno sneaking around and committing crimes for the Greater Good, Other, POV Peter Nureyev, Post S2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 07:11:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17844800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acerbicsarcasm/pseuds/acerbicsarcasm
Summary: The stage is set, the plans laid -- now they just have to execute a heist from one of the galaxy's most pedantic governments, and hopefully make it out in one piece.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation from the first work in this series, "show me how to lie". This will make a lot more sense if you start there :)
> 
> Title comes from "Common Thief" by The Tiger & Me.
> 
> CW: canon-typical violence, knife violence, incarceration, non-graphic depictions of choking until unconsciousness (not death), gun violence, light mentions of blood, injections (for medical purposes, not recreational drug use).

The drive from Anchises is done in silence, through a transparent tunnel of a highway that snakes its way across the craggy, untamed hills and slopes of the Venusian surface. Nureyev keeps glancing back in the mirror, but Juno is always looking out, watching the swirls of thick, roiling clouds outside the tunnel.

As they approach Adonis, Nureyev notices Juno’s intake of breath. He can’t resist the half-smile that creeps up on him. Adonis is one of the largest domes in the galaxy, several times larger than anything on Mars; he is expecting Juno to say something, perhaps a snarky joke about size (it wouldn’t be the first he’s heard from the detective), but nothing is said from the back seat.

“We’re approaching the hotel,” Vespa says, from beside Nureyev.

“Do you remember the directions, detective?” Nureyev asks.

“I know how to read a map, Kingston.”

“Alright. Give it about fifteen minutes before you try and find us —”

“I’ve been tracking cheating spouses through hotels for a decade,” Juno snaps back. “I know what I’m doing.”

Nureyev doesn’t offer a response. The Ruby 7 whistles, and a crawl space opens beneath the back seats. With one hand on the wheel and only half his attention on the road, Nureyev watches Juno lower himself down, until he’s perfectly hidden in the belly of the car.

The Ruby 7 slips up to the curb, and Nureyev steels himself, affecting the persona he’s decided on for this particular interaction. A valet opens his door for him, and Nureyev giggles. “Why, thank you!”

He secures the keys for a reservation for two under the name of Julius Castle and Venice Katrovasis, and offers a hand to Vespa, letting another breathy giggle escape. “Shall we, Venice, my dear?”

Suddenly, Nureyev wonders if Juno can hear.

He tips the valet with a couple creds and a kiss on the cheek.

They make their way up the many, many levels of the hotel, up to the fifty-first floor, where a suit awaits them. Julius Castle does love the mints left atop the pillow. Julius Castle also loves the bathrobes, and takes a shower immediately to wash off the dust from the trans-dome tunnels, but also just to be able to wrap up in the robe afterwards.

He’s applying a moisturising mask to his hair, towel slung low on his hips, when Vespa strides past, a hotel towel of her own wrapped around her, under her arms. She makes eye contact for a moment in the mirror, and says, “I’m sleeping on the couch.”

She’s in the shower before Nureyev can reply.

With a sigh, he finishes his evening routine and tugs on underwear and slides his slip on, tying the robe over the top. He’s replacing his dangling ear piece with sleepers for the evening when the door opens.

“Room service?” Castle calls, but an irked grunt is the only reply. Nureyev smiles. Tousling his hair with the towel, he walks back to the bedroom to see Juno, dishevelled from hiding in the Ruby 7, digging through the overnight bags Vespa had carried in.

“Detective. Excellent. No issues, I presume?”

Juno looks up long enough to fix him with a withering glare. “Well, the ironing room wasn’t exactly where you said it would be, but I made it work,” he says drily, and extracts his clothes for the morning from the duffel, along with a pair of spare underwear and … cat slippers?

“This is why we need you, detective,” Nureyev says airily, slipping his glasses back on. “Your ingenuity when confronted with a misplaced ironing room is simply unparalleled.”

“Oh, ha ha, _Kingston.”_

Nureyev can’t resist a sardonic laugh. He will never get used to the sound of one of his alias’s slipping from between Juno’s lips. He's grown used to hearing his name from the detective.

Turning away from Juno, he unties the robe and lets it fall atop the blankets of the bed. He can feel Juno’s gaze, and he smiles. This is something he’s been doing for years, and practice has made him very, very good at it. Moving slowly and languidly, he adjusts the straps of the slip, running a hand over his own shoulder and stretching, luxuriating in the simple fact that he has space to do so.

Behind him, Juno huffs. Nureyev flashes a grin over one shoulder, a hip still cocked. Juno has tossed the slippers onto the couch and is avoiding his eyes.

“Oh, that spot is taken, detective.” Nureyev lets the slightest tinge of glee slip into his words.

Juno turns slowly, fixing Nureyev with an acid glare. “Taken?” he grinds out.

Nureyev grins. He loves getting Juno riled like this. “Vespa is an attached woman, detective. I thought you might have noticed by now.”

“I know?”

“It would hardly be proper! And she has no desire to force us both to share the couch, so she’s graciously offered the bed to us. After all, you’re _not_ a taken lady, are you?”

Perhaps that was a touch too far. He sees the flush that creeps into Juno’s dark cheeks, and he abruptly spins on his heels, every movement stiff and furious. Nureyev feels the familiar glow of sadistic satisfaction, but as he watches Juno struggle with the buttons on his shirt, he hears those words again.

 _I loved it, Nureyev, but I loved you more_.

He brushes them away. Bullshit, he wants to declare, but he keeps these particular frustrations to himself. His smile is gone.

He busies himself with the tablet containing a copy of the blueprints, but peers over the edge occasionally to watch Juno. He’s hung most of the clothes up beside Vespa’s in the closet, stripped down to underwear and undershirt. A nice undershirt, with lace along the neckline.

The urge to fill his fists with that shirt and pull Juno very tightly against him wells up. Like an old addiction, one he thought he had kicked, but every now and then that nagging desire for another hit creeps up silently and with the force of an asteroid. He wants the taste of Juno on his tongue, the feel of every inch of him underneath his body. Nureyev prides himself on his control, but this is an addiction that makes every nerve beneath his skin burn.

Vespa exits the bathroom, and Juno brushes past her and out of Nureyev’s sight without a single word.

 

____________

 

It’s nearly a quarter of an hour later when Nureyev, lying in the darkness listening to Vespa’s heavy breathing, hears the pad of slipper-clad feet pause on the edge of the bed. After a few seconds, the glow of the bathroom light fades as it switches off automatically. Nureyev is left on his back, staring with sightless eyes at the ceiling and can feel every dip and movement in the mattress as Juno clambers on the other side. There’s a tug; he’s taking back blankets.

Hours pass. He can’t sleep and he doesn’t hear the deepening of the detective’s breaths either.

 

__________

 

Vulcan comes into view, and though it isn’t quite the sprawling mega-metropolis of Anchises, it is massive. The tallest sky scrapers peak in the centre of the dome, and the outlying suburbs are full of squat modern buildings of polished steel and copper, metallic and glinting and fulled with reflections of the sulphur-yellow clouds just beyond the dome.

From this distance, Nureyev can see their target. The Centre for Venusian Federal Affairs is a massive needle piercing the highest strip of airspace within Vulcan’s violet dome. Above, the sky is a furnace hot enough to melt lead, the winds blustering at hurricane force, and gusts of acidic clouds completely obscure the moonless sky.

As he pulls through the dome’s checkpoint and they exit the trans-dome tunnel from Adonis, Nureyev is acutely aware of Juno’s rustling in the back seat. He is handcuffed. Vespa actually applied the cuffs; Nureyev doesn’t trust himself enough for that. His self-control has been on a tight, tenuous leash all night.

The Ruby 7 is silent on the busy Venusian streets. They flit through traffic, past busy foot traffic, ignoring thousands of people dressed in the finest fashions. Venus is the galaxy’s centre for art, fashion, design, architecture — every prettily useless way to spend money.

Nureyev loves all of it.

He finds himself categorising accessories he sees in the streets, listing them according to worth and how easy they would be to smuggle, sorting through the impressive fakes and the potential one-of-a-kind pieces at a glance.

It’s a fun game, and the best distraction from the _click-click_ of Juno playing with the chain connecting his cuffs.

Eventually the spire of the CVFA looms above them, until the barbed-wire topped wall fills Nureyev’s vision.

 _“State your name and guests,”_ comes an automated voice from a speaker.

Vespa leans out her window, tugging off sunglasses to stare into the retinal scanner. “Neomi Zemke, Dark Matters. Guests — Thaddeus Page, Dark Matters. Dahlia Rose, detainee.”

_“Which sector, or sectors, of the Centre will you be visiting today? If you require an audience in multiple sectors, list them in the order you wish to be seen.”_

“The Bureau of Venusian Criminal Affairs, Inter-Planetary Division.”

The speaker unit beeps affirmative, and three passes, each with an attached lanyard, slide from a metal slot. Vespa passes one each to Nureyev and Juno with a terse, “Put it on.”

The gate whispers open, and Nureyev sends the Ruby 7 gliding through. He pulls up beside the main doors to the office building, and opens his door with the energetic zeal befitting a newer agent. He bounds to Juno’s door and opens it for him, keeping a firm hand around Dahlia Rose’s bicep and ensuring he doesn’t fall.

Keeping Rose ahead of him, Page holds the keys out to a valet, glancing over his sunglasses at the man. “I am entrusting you with Dark Matters’ property. Take the appropriate care, my good friend.”

The valet, likely no more than twenty, gulps visibly, but takes the keys. Page grins and slaps him on the shoulder, and then, holding Rose in front of him, follows Vespa’s lead into the building.


	2. Chapter 2

Rose is quickly extracted from Page’s hands by two security guards the moment they cross the threshold. Page takes the opportunity to straighten his jacket, adjust the fall of his pencil skirt, and follows Vespa to the line of federal employees being meticulously scanned upon entry.

Vespa places her briefcase on table to be scanned, and steps through a round x-ray chamber. The light flashes green. She exits, and Page takes her place.

The chamber’s door slams shut, and the light flash. Instantly, three guards descend, instructing him to remove his heels, his jacket, patting him down (Page lets out an _oh!_ of scandalised surprise),taking the bracelet around his wrist and his studs from his ears. Finally, they remove his glasses. These items are set atop a table for scanning, and the security guards, tight-lipped and terse, gesture for him to step back into the chamber.

The light flashes green, and Page retrieves his belongings. They keep the bracelet, since the beads appear to be hollow in the scans. With a cool air of tongue-tied embarrassment, Page pulls his shoes back on and, flushed a light pink, places his glasses back atop his nose.

Beside him, Vespa lets out a derisive snort, a superior both disappointed and mildly amused by the chaos.

A shorter man with hair tied back in a neat ponytail approaches, holding a tablet out in front of him. “Agents Zemke and Page?”

“Here,” says Vespa, offering a hand to shake. “You’re Visosky?”

“Yes. I’ll be aiding you in the processing of Mr Rose today.” Visosky gestures for them to follow. His hands are soft, stubby fingers twitching. “This way.”

Page follows the two of them, fingers still slipping earrings back into place.

Nureyev resists that primal urge to glance behind him. His chest aches, and he follows, completely entrenched in every aspect of the mask that is Thaddeus Page, even though every nerve in his body is screaming for him to look behind him for Juno Steel.

 

__________

 

Peter Nureyev loves bureaucracy, he truly does.

With the elaborate web of permissions, red tape, restrictions and protocols, the system does most of his job for him, working as a smokescreen, excuse, and alibi, all in one. Mag taught him that, every time he convinced someone to cut corners, or ask fewer questions, all because going through the right channels would take that much longer.

Visosky’s office is a tiny room with two screens on the walls, mountains of folders and booklets and discarded stationary, and two plastic chairs that Vespa and Page settle themselves into. Behind Visosky, who is still bringing up the correct form, there is a painting that occupies most of the wall. It displays the view of Sapas Mons, all sickly sulphur yellow.

Visosky is muttering to himself. “No previous convictions … his only outstanding warrant is issued by the CVFA, correct? Crimes falling under the ‘mid-level’ tier, based on value stolen … this should be it.” He swipes his fingers over the touchscreen control pad inlaid in the desk, and a form appears on the tablet that Vespa has lying in front of her.

A voice echoes over the comms. “Mr Visosky? Dahlia Rose is in room 17C for you. Will you let Mr MacLauren know when you need him transferred?”

Visosky presses the respond button without glancing over at it. “Will do, thanks Jack.” He glances at his guests, and Page is overcome with the impression that the smile Visosky wears is the same as every exhausted full-time cashier this side of Pluto. “Now, let’s get on with it, shall we?”

Another button, somewhere on the desk, and the painting on the wall dissolves. It was a cover for a one-way mirror, and the tiniest room beyond it, no deeper than a closet, reveals Dahlia Rose, sitting in a metal stool, cuffs locked to the table.

“Excellent, so let’s start with the details — do you have Mr Rose’s file there, Agent? We’ll need a full name, pronouns, title, birth name and date, place of birth, a copy of a Solar driver’s license if you have it, records of past name changes, identification photos …”

Page listens attentively. They’d looked up the forms in advance, making sure they had forged all the details they needed. Only the first three pages would be filled before Rose would be relocated to holding; only three pages were required for a positive identity match. The next eighteen pages were to be filled with information about the charges. In excruciating detail.

Nureyev, meanwhile, gazes slightly past Visosky. Juno looks just the same, not a bump or bruise on him. He is twitching, still playing with the chain between the cuffs. Rolling it over and over in his fingers, slipping it through the padlock with a rhythmic sort of determination, as if he could file it down. His eyepatch has been removed, and that makes Nureyev’s gut clench. The detective doesn’t sleep with it on, he knew that much from seeing the patch on the side table this morning, but he has never seen him without it.

Sitting hunched like this, Juno's right side looked shrunken, the tatters of scarred eyelid tissue sunken deep into the cavity where an eye had once been. It provides a lopsided kind of balance to his face, contrasting the scar that wandered over a previously broken nose and across his left cheek.

Nureyev remembers how that scar felt under his tongue.

“… as well as marital status, fingerprints, determination of next of kin, and any family contact details. For each immediate family member we’ll need to fill out their details and attach them to the form.”

Page sits quietly, occasionally asking questions, the epitome of a well-behaved protégé. Nureyev sweats.

After page three, Visosky buzzes back to whoever called earlier. “MacLauren? Are you available for a transfer?”

Page quietly adjusts a piercing in his left earlobe. Visosky is met with static.

“MacLauren? Are you there?” He tries a different number, and is met with the same. With a sigh, he glances behind him, where Dahlia Rose still sits, a perfectly meek figure in the flickering light.

“The transfer is only down to the basement levels, is that right?” Page jumps in. “Agent Zemke, I’m sure you could —”

“Yes, yes,” says Vespa, waving her hand in irritation as she scrolls through the next eighteen pages that she will stall for. One of those pages requires a file upload, and that is when she will plant the virus. “I can handle this.”

“I really must insist — “ says Visosky, eyes wide as he half-rises from his seat.

But Thaddeus Page beats him to the door, saying cheerily, “I’ll need to check is accomodation for compliance with his medical circumstances, Mr Visosky. Agent Zemke can fill you in on it, but I’m happy to take care of the transfer and use the opportunity to examine the holding conditions myself.”

“Please, Agent Page, our facilities are well-equipped —”

“Mr Visosky,” Page says, one foot already out the door, “I have been pursuing Rose for more than half a year! I don’t intend to miss out on seeing him brought to justice because he suffered an anaphylactic shock due to cotton in his blankets, he’s simply too important!”

Visosky looks taken aback, and he sits down again, hard. “An allergy to cotton? Surely that’s listed on his file already. If we could access his medical records from Triton —”

“That takes time, Mr Visosky, and you know how Neptune is.”

Vespa waves her hand dismissively. “Let him go, Visosky. Page follows cases through to the end. Makes him effective, but irritating. Let him take care of his pet … project.”

“Of — course. Without delay.” Visosky keys something into a small screen, and hands Nureyev a tag, designed to clip onto his lanyard. A tiny arrow glows on its surface. “This will direct you to his temporary holding rooms. You can collect him from 17C by following this hall around the corner, the door will be on your left.”

“Marvelous,” says Page, and he is gone.

Visosky’s office is deep in the labyrinth of level 14, where the walls are blinding white and the floors polished chrome. The door to 17C, guarded by one of the security officers who escorted Rose from the doorway. Page presents his badge, and the tiny blinking tag with an arrow, and informs the officer proudly that he’s here to complete the transfer.

The door hisses open and the guard gives Page the keys to Rose’s cuffs, and leaves.

Page has proven himself forgettable, and Nureyev smiles.

 

_________

 

When Page unlocks the cuffs from the table with a swipe of the key, he can see Juno edging away from him. There’s no skin contact made.

When Page escorts him down the hall and into an elevator, hand tight and high on his arm, he can feel the tension radiating from the shorter lady.

And when they exit the elevator on the first basement level and Page pulls him into a gap beside the bathrooms, the can feel the sigh of relief that Juno lets go when his grip slackens.

“Here,” says Nureyev, slipping a thick white sheet of plastic from his pocket. Juno takes it and hides it in the breast pocket of Dahlia’s shirt. “We need to go down two more floors to your cell and close it, so the system registers you as present. Then —”

“I clear the guards,” Juno says, impatiently. “I know.”

“Alright then,” Nureyev says, and the cool facade of Thaddeus Page slips into place. Page seizes Dahlia’s arm again, and he stumbles as they start to move down the halls again, to a separate elevator.

Most of the cells are empty. The ones that aren’t have their glass walls dimmed, to provide some modicum of privacy from the people walking through the halls. The tiny arrow on the tag rotates to lead Page and Dahlia four levels deeper into the underground cell block, and to a mostly empty hall.

“Here we are,” Page says, opening the door, and uses his free hand to fiddle with his piercing in his left earlobe. The jammer activates and he releases his grip on Juno’s arm. Keeping his hand on the small-range jammer in his earlobe, he swipes the key past the cuffs and they disengage. Juno tosses them on the cot in the cell and closes the door.

Keeping his hand to the jammer, Nureyev leads the way down the hall, to the eastern wing of the underground sector. Small Artefact Storage is the floor below Electronic Artefact Storage. They need to head about three floors down.

They take the stairs. It’s easier for the jammer to disrupt the sporadic cameras than to successfully disrupt elevator feed. By the time they reach the end of the stairs, Juno is breathing hard behind him.

“On the right,” Juno wheezes, and Nureyev wants to make a biting comment but he’s correct; _SAS208_ is emblazoned on the door’s plaque. And just like that, they’re here.

Nureyev glances at his watch. “Security will be around in two minutes,” he whispers. “I’ll need more than that to crack this door.”

“Got it,” Juno says, and pulls the plastic sheet from his pocket, popping the edges off of the pre-scored shape in the centre. Nureyev fumbles at his glasses, still holding down the button on his earring. He curses. He needs two hands for this. “Give it." Nureyev slips the earring free and hands it over. Juno closes his left fist around it, checking that the jammer is still engaged. In his right hand he holds a plastic knife folded from a flat sheet, edge razor-sharp and serrated, and nods.

Nureyev sets to work on his glasses. He clicks the hinges out of place, and unscrews the right temple until he’s holding the tiniest plasma cutter. The left unscrews into a thin, sharp flathead screwdriver. Both lenses on the glasses pop out, leaving a set of wire rims that manipulate themselves quite nicely. Were this an analog lock, they would serve as his rakes and the screwdriver his tension wrench. As it is, this lock is slightly more complex.

His tongue protrudes from between sharp teeth and he examines the lock with a practiced eye. This is why he wore contacts today.

Twisting the plasma cutter in on hand, he brings it to the lock and begins dismembering the electrical casing, waiting to hear the inevitable sound of footsteps behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

Nureyev is on the third lock when he hears the shout from down the hall. He cut through the first, shorted out the second, and is now working on the third. The fourth will be easy enough; he swiped the access card from Visosky’s desk.

A guard is phoning for backup, but receiving nothing more than static. The jammer in Juno’s left fist must still be engaged; that’s good. Nureyev redoubles his efforts, and he hears the unmistakeable sound of Detective Steel clocking a guard in the jaw. There’s a grunt but he knows Juno can handle himself.

There’s a tussle, then a moment of silence, broken by a wetly strangled curse. That gets Nureyev’s attention, and he glances back.

It’s not Juno who’s being choked, but the guard he has in a tight headlock, his face slowly flushing deeper and his kicks getting less and less frenzied, until eventually, he passes out in Juno Steel’s arms. As the detective lays the man down with care, Nureyev realises he’s breathing hard. _No_. He isn’t supposed to react like this.

His hand slips and inwardly, he shrugs. Even if he intended on flaunting everything he has in front of Juno, he’s still allowed to find that determined set to the detective’s jaw and the subtle, efficient movements of that stocky frame … alluring, isn’t he?

 _Focus_.

Nureyev adjusts his fingers and shorts out the third lock. He rises to his feet, stuffing the pieces of his glasses into his pocket, and swipes the stolen key across the fourth lock. He hears the unmistakable beep of an unlocking door, and he places the left lens of his mangled glasses in his breast pocket with care. He opens the door and holds it, giving Juno that grin that has brought the rich and successful and the corrupt down to their knees, in every sense of the phrase.

“Shall we?”

Perhaps the detective lingers a moment too long; perhaps that is wishful thinking on Nureyev’s behalf.

With a grunt, Juno heads through into Small Artefact Storage.

 

___________

 

Small Artefact Storage, room 208, is lit dimly, the lights red in power-saving mode. Nureyev punches the serrated edges of a knife from the plastic sheet, and holds it lightly. He _hates_ these plastic imitations; he would choose the real, metal thing over this any day of the week. But they had been careful in circumnavigating the security measures, and every metal item on their persons, from Nureyev’s glasses and piercings to Vespa’s hair clips, had been carefully considered. They simply couldn’t afford real weapons.

These would be good for a couple of well-aimed blows. Nureyev hardly needed more than that.

They wind their way through the aisles, and Nureyev whispers, “You can release the jammer now, detective. The cameras only cover the exits.”

A weakly muffled grunt makes him look around. “Juno!”

He’s fixed his one eye on Nureyev, who stares in shock. Juno’s left hand is bloodied where the earring has pierced the skin of his palm and torn at it.

Nureyev _tsk-tsks_ under his breath and pulls off his tie, ripping it in half and tying it around his hand. “Really. You’re quite melodramatic when you want to be. You couldn’t have just held it, like I asked?”

“I was a bit busy,” Juno says, through gritted teeth. He extracts his hand from Nureyev’s and examines the shelves, shaking the injured hand as if he can flick the stinging pain away. “What number again?”

He knows the number. Nureyev is certain, because he listened in on Rita testing Juno on it the day before. “478.”

For a couple of minutes they search in silence, squinting in the weak lights. These shelves are filled with plastic-covered artefacts, none larger than a breadbox. Nureyev recognises a red stone tablet and the carvings — undeniably ancient Martian — make his skin crawl. He shoves it away and keeps looking.

“This it?”

Nureyev moves to look over Juno’s shoulder, standing closer than he needs to. “That is indeed.”

Reaching into his jacket, he pulls on pair of rubber gloves from an extra pocket concealed inside his shirt, and lifts the plastic cover carefully. The refinery looks precisely as it should, oblong and covered in plastic casing. The funnel port at the top for the raw, bioluminescent ore is covered with plastic elastic, protecting the inside from dust, and the tray at the base that dispenses the pure bacteria, ready for bottling and injection, is taped shut. It’s pristine.

He realises Juno is waiting for confirmation. Nureyev nods up at him, and zips the plastic cover up again. It comes with a carry-handle. How thoughtful.

“The other door,” Nureyev says, and Juno understands. They continue down the aisle, Juno first, covering Nureyev with the knife in his hand. The only sound is the click-clack of Nureyev’s heels in the large, dark room.

He can see the layout in his mind’s eye — four more Small Artefact rooms, then a set of stairs, followed by a tiny tunnel that bridges the east and north quadrants. There, in the sixth Large Artefact Storage room, Rita would send a loading truck to wait. It would be a long, twisting driving up through the corkscrew-like loading tunnel to the surface, and a quick jaunt from there back to Adonis and the hotel.

Then, back to the _Rover_ and back to —

The first laser blast hits like the crack of a whip and Nureyev does what comes naturally; he reaches out a hand and grabs the back of Juno’s coat, pulling him back hard so he stumbles, and comes to a crouch behind the aisle.

“What the hell?” hisses Juno, knife braced in front of him. Nureyev registers the fact that his grip actually isn’t half bad while he tries to figure out which direction the blast came from. With deft fingers, he fishes out the lens he took from the destroyed glasses, and raises it to his left eye, tapping the glass twice with his finger.

Through the heat-filtering glass, he can see their outlines, glowing a red at their cores compared to the pale blues of the room. “Four of them,” he says quietly. He stands up, adjusting his jacket and smoothing his skirt neatly, leaving the refinery hidden around the corner of the aisle with Juno.

“What? Nureyev —”

“Just a moment, wait a _moment_!” Nureyev sends his voice out through the room and hears their movements still. “Goodness, hold fire!”

From the corner of his eye he can see Juno, gesturing wildly for him to come back, eye wide and mouthing something furiously, face flushed with anger. Nureyev steps past the edge of the aisle, presenting a badge that he’s produced from the pocket of his skirt.

(Yes, the skirt has pockets. He’s infinitely grateful for Buddy’s tailor; the man can work magic. Pockets in a pencil skirt is borderline witchcraft. And with such fabulous paisley linings, too.)

“Hold fire,” he repeats, and he can see all four of them now, holding semi-automatic laser pistols braced professionally. He can’t see a stun setting on them. “Caesar Barr, senior representative of the DIVE.” Division of Internal Venusian Examinations. “We’re running routine checks at the moment, folks. We’ll thank you to not take our heads off. We’re just doing our jobs. Not that you folks are,” he adds.

“What’d you —”

“I _do_ recommend you check the south tunnel on the fourth level of the cell block,” Barr interrupts. “Smashed glass? Disabled camera feeds? _Tru-u-u-uly_ appalling. The records weren’t even clear if someone should have been in the cell, we can’t seem to find them anywhere.”

A different guard, head entirely clean-shaven and devoid of any hair anywhere, pipes up, “We saw —”

“Yes, the situation of the guards does indicate something to be _amiss_ , doesn’t it?” Barr cuts in once more. He talks rapidly, barely breathing when he needs to. “Several corpses on your floors don’t look good folks, they really don’t. I’ll need to write this all up, but it appears I’ve lost my tablet in all this mess. They really _need_ to turn on some lights in here.”

“Some of the artefacts —” says Baldie, but Barr doesn’t let him finish.

“The preservation quality in these rooms is truly abysmal, I hate to break it to you folks. Of course you’re doing your jobs, or trying to, but these rooms need to be watched better. As does the dust situation. Now, where in the _galaxy_ did I put my tablet?”

Eyes sliding past all four guards, their pistols in varying states of being lowered to point at the floor, Nureyev turns and heads back up the aisle, where Juno is still crouched out of sight, holding his head in his hands, his eye wide and stunned. Nureyev makes the slightest twitch of his head, and Juno seems to get the message.

It takes seconds for the first guard, a short, muscled woman, to follow Nureyev. Juno hits her in the jaw as she turns the corner, and she crumples with hardly a sound. The second, talkative Baldie, doesn’t go down quite as easily. Juno has to swing twice, the second time using the butt of the plastic knife as reinforcement.

The remaining guards hesitate. Nureyev has turned, facing the entrance to the aisle. He hears them muttering.

Making eye contact with Juno, Nureyev calls out, “Do either of you folks have a flashlight? It truly is impossible to see.” He hopes he doesn't sound strained. It takes every iota of self-control he has to look away from Juno's gaze.

The remaining guards round the corner simultaneously, pistols half-raised. Juno slams a knee into the gut of the one on the left, and when he’s winded he cracks the butt of the knife across his jaw. A precise, deft move, executed flawlessly.

Nureyev confronts the one on the right. He’s tall, taller than Nureyev by at least a head, but it takes less than a second for him to plunge the knife into the man’s shoulder and reach up, hooking a hand around the man’s neck, and slam him casually, head-first, into the nearest shelving unit.

The unit shakes and the guard crumples.

Nureyev is already pulling a new knife from a pocket, popping it from the plastic and folding it. He hefts the refinery with his left, and nods to Juno. “Well done, detective. Now, shall we?”

 

___________

 

The delivery van that Rita provides them is automated. Nureyev clambers into the driver’s seat anyway, just to check that the screen does indeed have a route plotted for the surface. He’s hefting the refinery into the bed of the van when he hears, from the door, where Juno is standing watch, the sound of a scream.

Nureyev’s head snaps up, and he stares through the vehicle's windows as he looks across the cavernous warehouse of massive pieces covered by plastic sheets, as if the entire room is occupied by several dozen ghosts. He sees Juno’s silhouette in the doorway, one body crumpled at his feet, another up close in his face.

Just like that, Nureyev kicks off his heels and begins sprinting across the warehouse floor.

The guard still standing slams Juno into the doorway, and brings that plastic knife in Juno’s own hand very, very close to the straining tendons in his throat. Nureyev can see the sweat beading along the crease of Juno’s ear.

Eventually, these few seconds of stand-off appears to have gone on too long. With a grunt, the guard slams his elbow into Juno’s rib.

The detective’s collapse is immediate and predictable. He curls in the foetal position, each hiss of his breath through broken ribs laced with a whimper.

Nureyev pulls back his hand and throws, and before the guard can move closer, a thick plastic knife is buried halfway to its hilt beneath his left floating ribs. The scream rips the silence open and echoes around the massive room.

Juno hauls himself to his feet, tears streaming from his eye, and Nureyev half-drags, half-escorts him to the waiting van. He’s too tall to make a comfortable crutch but Nureyev knows Juno will simply have to make do.

He gets Juno into the passenger’s seat and the van’s doors close. He hears the crackle of a comms, trying to call for backup, or help, or perhaps security, but Nureyev doesn’t care. He jabs a finger at the screen gently glowing with a blue route, and he lets Rita’s pre-programmed directions take them away at no less than a hundred miles an hour.


	4. Chapter 4

“ _The good news is that Vespa is out, in one entire piece, the way I like her,”_ Buddy Aurinko says, and Nureyev lets out a bark of laughter.

“I hear that is a positive thing,” he says.

_“Jet and Rita were able to hack into the system flawlessly. The only real issue was the guard rounds being much faster than we anticipated.”_

“We always knew there would be a little bit of fisticuffs involved.”

 _“Between the two of you, you disposed ofeight guards, darling. We’d anticipated better odds than that.”_ Buddy sighs, the sound crackling over the comms. _“No matter. Alaric, we’ll pick you and Juno up at the Ares docks tomorrow. There’s no point in coming back to Anchises, we had to take off the minute Vespa and the Ruby 7 returned. We’re in orbit at the moment, but we’ll be in Ares by eleven tomorrow. Did Rita’s directions come through?”_

“Loud and clear, Mrs Aurinko. We’re forty minutes away from the surface; I’ll provide you with an update when we reach the checkpoint between Vulcan and the trans-dome tunnels.”

_“Excellent. All in all, darling, a success. Congratulate Juno for me, will you?”_

Nureyev glances back, to where Juno lies in the bed of the an, a bone-knitting injection slowly working through his system.

“Yes,” he says, “a success.”

 _“If you miss your call after the checkpoint I expect a call on channel 19 in eight hours.”_ Buddy’s unforgiving tone brooks no argument. _“I expect a location update, and an update on your dear detective.”_

“Naturally,” Nureyev says, with a dry smirk. The connection cuts.

He’s is fairly certain Juno sustained only two broken ribs, but he isn’t sure. The heat-sensitive lens he brought didn’t reveal anything other than two jagged cracks, which he’d tried to manoeuvre into place the best he could. The healing process would take hours instead of weeks, and thankfully they had most of the equipment required. These vans contain all sorts of first aid and armoury.

He glances over at the wheel, driving itself. Programmable automobiles are his favourite, and though the van lacks the creature comforts of the Ruby, he thinks it can handle itself for a little while. He leans back and is asleep within minutes.

 

__________

 

Nureyev is a light sleeper, and the sound of Juno Steel moaning loudly brings him crashing into consciousness with a violence he hasn’t anticipated. He cracks his head on the top of his bunk as he jumps up.

It takes a few seconds for him to realise where he is — not in a bunk, but in a van seat that is too close to the ceiling for comfort, since he couldn’t figure out how to move it. Juno is lying atop a shock blanket in the bed of the van, shirt unbuttoned completely so Nureyev could administer the bone knitting injection. Now his exposed chest is beaded with fine sweat droplets, and he tosses his head from side to side in a feverish frenzy.

Nureyev glances at the screen. They are six minutes from the surface. He is already wearing the driver’s badge he forged, pinned neatly to his shirt, but he needs to make sure he’s there to charm — or con — the guards when they reach the surface checkpoint.

Another high-pitched, screeching groan rips its way from Juno’s throat and Nureyev bites his lip with sharp, angled teeth. He’s not concerned, of course, since knitting bones is never _fun_ , but this phase usually lasts between ten to fifteen minutes. Though Juno is certainly one of the more … _vocal_ patients he’s treated.

He checks the clock again — five minutes, twenty seconds — and crawls to the back of the van. Beneath his knees, he can feel the rocking sway of the van as it curves its way up and up through the spiral tunnels, to the edge of Vulcan.

Spidery fingers snapping the first aid box open, Nureyev considers, pulling on sterile gloves. He can put Juno under; that would take care of the moaning, keep him from making noise and likely lower his body temperature. He can cover him with blankets and hope no one asks to check the back. These emergency sedatives can be finicky, though, and he isn’t sure he wants to put Juno through the aftereffects.

Nureyev realises he’s staring at the tiny syringes. Put Juno through the aftereffects? They’ll last a couple of hours, at most, and Nureyev himself has had several doses, for various reasons. Uncomfortable, perhaps, but nothing dire. He’s being soft and he needs to stop.

Another glance at the clock — four minutes, ten seconds.

Deftly, he pulls Juno’s sleeve off his left arm. He feels for a vein; nothing. Impatient, he strips the sleeve off the other side and tosses the shirt aside. No clear vein either.

Three minutes, fifty seconds.

Gritting his teeth, he unties the rags of his tie from Juno’s hand. The scratches from the earring weren’t serious, and they had stopped bleeding. He uses the tie as a tourniquet around Juno’s upper arm, feeling as the veins swell slightly. Not much better. He could apply heat, but he doesn’t have time.

He swabs the area with rubbing alcohol, not letting it dry as long as he should, and clears bubbles from the needle. Nureyev pushes the injection in, slow and steady, and breaks the syringe down and places the pieces in the sealable sharp bags, along with his gloves.

Juno’s breathing has evened out. His legs are no longer kicking, and slowly his movements still.

The van beeps. Nureyev shoots up, checking the time. Two minutes, fifteen seconds. He tugs the blankets out from under Juno, and tosses them over his inert form. He should be out for about two hours. They’ll deal with the inevitable side effects then.

Slipping back into his seat, Nureyev adjusts the badge on his breast. He adds a cap he found in the glove compartment, shedding his suit jacket.

He buckles in, as an afterthought.

 

__________

 

Beau Butler is thoroughly bored with his job. As he pulls up to the gates, emerging from the tunnels to a federal checkpoint, he’s picking at his teeth. The van drives itself, practically, what’s he needed for?

“ID?”

"Hm?"

"ID, sir."

Butler fishes around in the glove compartment. He presents a battered Venusian personal ID card, flashing a more put-together image of himself six years ago and a host of irrelevant details.

“Butler,” the guard calls to her colleague in the hut. Turning back to Butler, she asks, “What’s your load?”

“Going out for collection. A dispatch from Ares.”

“Nothing in the car?”

“I gotta replace my first aid kit. The jerk who used this van last didn’t replace anything. I have a mess of blankets ’n shit in the back.” Butler jerks his head, indicating with a suffering sigh.

From inside the hut, the second guard calls back. “Beau Butler, cleared for Ares collection.”

For an instant, the guard with her nose a few inches from Butler’s hesitates, as if something is off. Then she gestures. “On your way.”

“Thanks.”

Butler rolls up the window and pulls through the boom gate. The van, following a pre-programmed path, follows the road to the trans-dome tunnels in mere minutes. Butler keeps his hands on the wheel. There's no need to, but it's a familiar, reassuring gesture that gives him the illusion of being useful. He doesn’t notice the sleek blue hover cycle with VDPD emblazoned on the side pull out and head down the same road.

But Peter Nureyev definitely notices.

 

__________

 

Buddy is satisfied with Kingston’s report, and she dismisses their tail.

 _“I have faith in you, darling. The drive to Ares is another nine hours; that’s ample time for you to shake him, I’m certain._ ”

She hangs up without a spare word.

Nureyev isn’t as sure. He’s pulled up the maps on the navigational device, and all he can see are four intersections along their way. He has a few options; he can take a detour through the Hermes dome, adding several hours to their time, and try and lose their tail in the city. Hermes is largely an arti-ag — artificial agriculture. Nureyev has never been there himself, but he’s seen similar cities of vertical gardens growing GMO fruit and vegetables. An efficient arti-ag can sustain its entire planetary population.

The other option is sabotage. If he simply gets rid of their tail, it’s problem solved, isn’t it?

He tosses the options up, idly rolling a coin across his knuckles as he contemplates. The regular _beep-beep_ of the comms' navigation system is strangely therapeutic.

A glance behind him shows that Juno is still out. He has another ten minutes, approximately, before he wakes. Nureyev hopes the side-effects won’t be too bad; he’s seen everything from nausea to amnesia. These sedation doses are technology from the war, and, like most technology developed during conflicts, value effectiveness over precision.

They’re deep in the tunnel now. The only things visible are the other three lanes, practically empty of other commuters, and the sickly yellow storms swirling outside. Nureyev watches the distorted yellow light dance over the stubbled planes of Juno’s jaw.

He should make him more comfortable, he thinks, and clambers into the bed of the van with the detective. Juno is lying on a blanket, and Nureyev has already rolled up his suit jacket and placed it beneath his head as a pillow. Looking for something to do, Nureyev gently extracts his jacket and re-rolls it, fluffing it slightly, and slips it beneath Juno’s neck again. He’s covered him with his own shirt, since he had to take it off to inject it, and putting shirts on unconscious bodies is very, very challenging.

Nureyev looks for something else to do. He stares at Juno until he realises where this déjà vu comes from.

In the Martian tomb, after hours of being interrogated, when his eye was bleeding and he could barely stand, Nureyev would guide Juno to lay his head in his lap. Then, when the detective slipped into an exhausted, deep sleep, Nureyev would run his shaking fingers through his curls until he fell asleep sitting against the wall of the tomb.

For an instant, he feels the trembling in his fingers again, the jolt of electricity making him twitch, the sight of several knives lined up neatly beside his cuffed hands, ready to claim a thumb at Miasma’s whim. He stares at his hands, watching the yellow light play over them, checking them for tremors.

He looks to Juno. Before Nureyev can stop himself, he slips off his heels and sits against the passenger’s seat, long gangly legs out in front of him, and slips Juno’s head from the rolled-up jacket onto his lap. He settles the jacket around Juno’s shoulders, wondering if that will keep him warm. He also takes a small cotton pad from the open first-aid kit and tears a strip from the blanket with his teeth. He knots together a makeshift eyepatch and settles it into place over the empty socket on Juno’s right side.

The van continues its steady rumble through the tunnels, and through the rear window, Nureyev can see the speck in the distance that represents their tail.

 

___________

 

It’s the graceless “ _uhhhhhhh_ ” that lets Nureyev know Juno is regaining consciousness. He always meets the detective in the most graceless of situations: attempting to climb out a window; wearing a beat-up tuxedo with bags under his eyes after a long case, ready for sleep; hacking up a lung of dust in the Martian desert.

Now, waking up from a bone knitting injections.

“Hush,” Nureyev mutters, and roots around behind him in the passenger’s seat, keeping Juno's head on his lap. “I have water, Juno.”

The detective curls onto his side, clutching his ribs as he hacks dry coughs through parched lips. Nureyev makes shushing noises, gentle coos and whispers, and slowly coaxes him to drink. Some spills, but this is a borrowed car.

It takes a few minutes before Juno opens his eye, licking dry lips. Nureyev produces chapstick, and that wrings a weak laugh from the detective.

“Gimme that,” he rasps, and makes weak grabbing motions.

“Oh, calm down,” Nureyev says, but can’t keep the smirk out of his voice. He applies it gently to Juno’s lips. “Quit moving.”

Juno nods, and says something quietly.

“What was that?”

He rubs his lips together and looks Nureyev directly in the eyes. “I said it’s a shame you don’t have the tinted stuff. I look great in it.” Then closes his eye again. Nureyev listens to his breath settle and even out. He’s not quite asleep, but he’s pulling himself together.

Suddenly, the thief realises he has Juno Steel _lying on his lap_.

If he’s allowed to admire Juno’s appearance, surely he’s allowed to luxuriate in his touch, his presence? It’s very simply biology, he tells himself, and very little he can do to stop it.

He doesn’t still the hand running through Juno’s hair, though.

After a couple more moments, he feels Juno shift, and braces himself as Juno struggles to a sitting position. He feels for his ribs, and winces. “What’d you put in me?”

Nureyev brushes off his skirt (why does ‘professional’ always mean ‘restrictive’?) and gestures to the first aid kit. “A bone knitting injection, and a sedative. The knitting should mostly be complete. I don’t recommend vigorous exercise for the next couple of hours —”

“Don’t worry, I don’t feel much like bench-pressing at the moment.”

“—and you need to pay attention to any side effects of the sedative. It’s a solar military issue, they likely gave surplus to the federal governments.”

Juno cocks an eyebrow at Nureyev. “I know what the side effects are.”

Nureyev is confused. Juno seems fine. It might have taken him a while to come out from under the sedative, but he doesn’t seem to be having issues with speaking, and he can see fine …

Juno must have noticed his perplexed expression, because he laughs. “Strong sedated me once. It took a while to figure out what was wrong with me.” He pokes himself in the left shoulder with his right hand, and flinches. “Weird.”

Now that he’s sitting up, the jacket and shirt have slipped off him and Nureyev has a perfect view of the planes of Juno’s chest, the hints of chubbiness starting just above his belt, the scars that criss-cross his arms and shoulder and the needle-thin rows of scars along his inner forearms. Nureyev remembers the bump of the burn on Juno’s upper shoulder and half-reaches out to touch it. To his surprise, Juno leans forward. “Go ahead.”

Nureyev can’t help but stare. What does he mean? What is he after? Is this the side-effects?

He reaches out and touches the ridge of scar tissue on his shoulder. Juno flinches, and Nureyev pulls back quickly. “Juno, I —”

Waving a hand, Juno grins. “It’s normal. Strong says the sedative messes with the bridge between brain hemispheres.” He pokes himself in the lower stomach, off to one side. “Touch here and, I feel it —” he pokes the opposite side “—here.”

Nureyev is staring at the glint of yellow light on Juno’s piercings and listens, as if from far off, to his own response. “Intriguing.”

It takes a few seconds for it to register. “Wait,” he says, slowly. “Juno, if I do this …” he pokes the detective, quickly and gently, on the right knee, “you feel it on the other side?”

“It’s a hell of a brain-trip, seeing something in one place and feeling it in another,” Juno says, looking around for something. He keeps talking, but Nureyev is busy processing his own relief. It could have been uncontrollable vomiting, or delusions. Instead, he ended up with a confused detective.

What else is new, really?

Juno finally locates what he’s looking for — his shirt — and tugs it on. It’s missing a few buttons but he doesn’t mention it. His movements are confused, hesitant, and it takes him twice as long to do as it should. Nureyev can see how this might be a problem; Juno's brain is confused, overwhelmed with the mismatch in visual and sensory input. It would be impossible to walk.

“Where are we?” Juno asks at last, looking around. “I thought we were heading back to Adonis?”

“Vespa had to get out,” Nureyev says, disregarding the minor detail of the number of people she’d killed to do so successfully. “She had to go directly to Anchises. The _Rover_ is in orbit, and we’re going to be collected at Ares.”

“How much longer have we got?”

Nureyev hoists himself up to look at the nav-comm. “Approximately … seven hours.”

The silence sits, and stretches, and Nureyev realises that Juno Steel is fully lucid and going to be so for the remaining trip. He prepares himself for laden silences and perhaps hard words.

Then he remembers something else important. “I ought to inform you that we have a tail.”

“A what?”

“A tracker? A pursuer? A badly hidden stalker?”

Juno scrambles to the rear window, but Nureyev pulls him back. Juno’s body jerks oddly under his hand, and he immediately releases him. That had to have felt odd. “He doesn’t know you’re here,” Nureyev says, instead of the apology he should be giving. “You need to stay out of line of sight.”

Juno scoffs at him, but doesn’t try to look again. “What’s he on?”

“A federal issue hover cycle, six years old, eight hoverplates.”

With a low, appreciative whistle, Juno nods. “Serious speed.”

“Indeed. I was considering taking a loop around Hermes, seeing if we could lose him there.”

“With plates like that? And a federal registration, he wouldn’t have to obey traffic laws. He could jump between lane levels without so much as a honk. No, we can’t outrun something like that.”

Nureyev keeps his mouth shut and lets the detective think, hoping he won’t come to the conclusion the thief did hours ago.

“What’s the temperature like, out there?” Juno asks eventually, jabbing a thumb towards the windows, where the acidic atmosphere of Venus swirls like ink dropped in water.

“Four hundred and sixty-two degrees celsius, roughly,” Nureyev supplies. “As low as negative a hundred and fifty, depending on how high a hill you decide to perch on.”

Juno rubs his forehead. “Well, that won’t work. Can we lock him in the tunnel?”

Nureyev considers, rolling the idea around. “Potentially. The Venusian trans-dome tunnel checkpoints are very thorough, I’m sure we could use that against them.”

“Alright.” Juno adjusts his spot, leaning against the wall. He’s sitting at right-angles to Nureyev, who has to resist the urge to entangle his legs with Juno’s. “I can work with that.”


	5. Chapter 5

Beau Butler needs some adjustment, Nureyev decides. Bored apathy served him well in Vulcan, but he’ll need some more charisma for this.

So when the van pulls up to the Hermes east tunnel checkpoint, Butler is exceeding the speed limit by several dozen kilometres, and waving frantically. He pulls so close to the gate he almost knocks into it.

A guard looks up, and, seeing Butler’s frantic hand gestures and the unmistakeable shape of his lips shouting something through the glass, goes pale. He trips on his way out of his booth, recovers, and has his laser pistol half-out of his holster by the time he reaches the window. Butler rolls it down quickly, glancing back over his shoulder with a furtive expression.

“Quick, my good man, when was the last maintenance done on the tunnel from here to Vulcan?”

Whatever the guard was expecting, it wasn’t that. He stumbles around his next words. “I — should I check — don’t know —”

“It doesn’t matter!” Butler snaps a finger under the guard’s nose. Nureyev knows they picked up a lead after speeding through the last few kilometres, but the longer this takes the faster the hover cycle will gain. “You need to seal it off immediately! It’s cracking! We barely made it here!”

If possible, more blood drains from the guard’s face.

Venus is coated in a thick layer of acidic greenhouse gasses, dense as water and hotter than a furnace. If the tunnel collapses, while still open to the dome, the dome will flood. Not with liquid, but searing hot, thick gas.

The deaths would be devastating and instant.

The guard lurches into action, sprinting back to his booth and jabbing at the comms. The boom gate opens up, and Butler hears snatches of conversation.

“No scheduled transports — empty portion — pressure equalisation — yes, ma’am —”

The van pulls forwards as thick doors slam closed behind them.

 

__________

 

Nureyev can hear Juno’s gasp from where he sits in the bed of the van, hidden from sight. But it’s terrified enough that Nureyev hits the _AUTODRIVE_ button and twists around in his seat, just in time to see the translucent dome withdraw from the Hermes dome.

The motion of a million tons of gas, held at bay by nothing more than dome tech and reinforced glass, is mesmerising. It swirls in, thick and cloying, and beyond those shut doors the tunnel is intentionally flooded with scalding air.

“No scheduled transports,” whispers Nureyev, stunned.

Juno turns around, face contorting. “What the _hell_ did you say to him?”

“Juno, I —”

“What the _hell_ did you do, Nureyev? We only needed to close the gate, we didn’t need to quarantine the tunnel!”

“The officer following us didn’t log his trip,” says Nureyev helplessly, spreading his hands. “They weren’t aware of anyone in that stretch of tunnel. They likely flood it until they can get appropriately suited maintenance crews to check the infrastructure, equalising pressure is the easiest way to —”

“There was a _person_ back there, Nureyev!” Juno spits, and Nureyev feels it, as clear as day; that same revolt, the same dark mistrust, that he saw in Juno’s eye when he learned about Brahma. The same dark anger that clouded everything between them the moment Juno Steel snapped those cuffs around Rex Glass’s wrists.

He tries for gentle calm. “Juno, it wasn’t your —”

“What the _hell_ did you say to him? Did you ask him to open the tunnels? Give him a hand with his job, maybe?”

“You know I —”

“Goddammit,” Juno hisses. “No one ever changes! Good to know you’re still killing people in cold blood, Nureyev. I knew you were ruthless, but this takes the fucking cake.”

“Please, Juno —”

“This is exactly what Rita warned me about, you know? She said you were all trigger-happy crooks and boy, looks like she was right.”

“ _Juno!”_ Nureyev has never raised his voice over the detective, but he feels this time he needs to.

Juno stares back at him, angry and fists clenched.

“Juno. If you will kindly remember, I did not kill a single person during our heist today. Yes, perhaps that is more restraint than I am used to, but I am not an assassin, Juno. I am a thief, and it has never once factored into my plans for this heist to spill anyone’s blood.

“I told the guard back there our cover story. This was improvised, I’ll have you note, and in unforeseen circumstances things tend to take unpleasant turns.”

He’s settled a bit. The flush is still high in his cheeks, and he’s clutching his ribs as he glares at Nureyev over the seat of the car between them.

Finally he breaks the silence. “Move,” he grunts, and hauls himself up, teetering as his nerves fire randomly, trying to figure out which way is which. Nureyev doesn’t offer a hand to help him settle into the passenger’s seat; he figures it will be declined.

They are seated, eventually, side-by-side in the front of the van, still driving itself.

“We just killed someone,” Juno says.

“Yes,” Nureyev replies.

“Is that it?” Juno snaps, and Nureyev keeps his hands down by his side with deliberate force. “Someone just _died_ and all you can say is, _‘yeah, I guess that happened’_? Dammit, I am so sick and tired of people dying! I keep getting people killed left and right, when all I —”

“Juno.” Nureyev is tired of interrupting, but he knows this line of thought won’t do any good. “Look at me, Juno. Look at me.”

He hopes those words from so long ago jog the detective’s memory. Juno’s response is instant and visceral; he stares Nureyev down with fire in his one good eye.

“What did we talk about, when we were stepping you through this heist?”

“What do you mean, what did we talk about, we talked about a lot, Nureyev, for hours —”

“We talked about minimising casualties. Which we have done, to astonishing success.”

“You _stabbed_ a guy!”

“And I’m certain he’ll make a full recovery,” Nureyev counters. “I’ve been stabbing people for quite a while Juno, give me the benefit of the doubt when I say I know what a light stabbing looks like.”

He knows that was the wrong thing to say as soon as he’s finished the sentence. Of course, to know what a light stabbing looks like, you have to compare it to more vigorous stabbings. And every line in Juno’s body is screaming at him that this isn’t what the plan was.

“We agreed to the plan, didn’t we?” Nureyev asks.

“Yeah?”

“We talked about it and we decided to try our luck with locking him out of the dome,” he continues. “We cannot be blamed for unknown security measures.”

“We could have done something —”

“Yes!” Nureyev says, and he feels his grip on this conversation slipping away, along with his patience. “Yes, of course we could have! We make a lot of decisions, Juno, and every time we make one there is something that we could have done differently, that’s what a decision _is_.

“We had limited information, and even more limited knowledge about the consequences. We took what we had and made the best of it, like you have to in every job. It’s simple and it’s brutal but it is also a _fact_ that we make decisions based on what we know going in. Every decision is made with an incomplete data set, no matter what we do. What matters is that the choices we make, that they’re the best choices we could have made under those circumstances. And these were extenuating circumstances.

“We have regrets, Juno, we all do, but we only have regrets because new information comes to light, usually in the form of consequences. And that is something we couldn’t have known, not when we were making our decisions. Choices have to be made, and we have to live with that. But we can also live with the fact that we did everything we could with what we knew."

For a long, long moment, the car is silent. Then Juno mutters, “Pass me the water, would you?”

Nureyev practically tosses it at him. Juno drinks, gulping it down. He wipes his mouth and maybe, Nureyev wonders, wipes his eye.

“Juno?”

“I think I’m gonna sleep some more,” Juno mutters. “I’m done talking.”

Nureyev nods, and, for something to do, removes the van from automated driving mode. He winds through Hermes, making his way through the quiet nighttime city to the other tunnel, the one that will take them directly to Ares. He considers calling Buddy, but figures it can wait until Juno is in a more reasonable mood.

The headlights of the van cut through the dimmed evening of the Hermes sphere, and outside, the amber swirls of a Venusian hurricane curls around them.

**Author's Note:**

> For this fic I learned that the parts of glasses that go over the ears are called 'temples' and the average temperature on Venus. Never say fandom never taught you anything.
> 
> Comments, feedback and kudos always welcome! Let me know what you think. You can also find me on tumblr, @mistah-aluminum


End file.
